How infodemic intoxicates public health surveillance: from a big to a slow data culture

Abstract

Too much data? Too much information? The COVID-19 pandemic has made the case. The WHO coined the term ‘infodemic’ to describe the issue of overabundance of information, including misinformation, disseminated in real time via multiple channels.1 2 A related concept is ‘datademic’ to describe the overabundance of data. I argue in this essay that infodemic intoxicates public health surveillance and decision-making, and that we need to revisit how we conduct surveillance in the age of big data by fostering a slow data culture.

Why too much data intoxicate public health surveillance

Surveillance is the ongoing systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of data, closely integrated with the timely dissemination of the resulting information to those responsible for preventing and controlling disease and injury.3 Traditionally, it requires high-quality data which are collected for this purpose along well-defined methods. In the era of infodemic and big data,…

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